Read and comment on this op-ed written for "Peace Corps Online" by Thailand RPCV Collin Tong about the profoundly troubling questions for Returned Peace Corps Volunteers seeking to voice their concerns about the course of American foreign policy post Sept. 11th, and in particular the deteriorating humanitarian crisis in Iraq:

"On Feb. 14 and March 21, 2003, more than 1,850 RPCVs signed two New York Times ads urging a peaceful resolution of the crisis in Iraq and condemning unilateral U.S. action. We did so mindful of the reasons that inspired more than 165,000 Americans who have served abroad in 136 countries, i.e. to promote better understanding of other peoples in the world. In particular, we reaffirm the spirit articulated in the Third Goal of the Peace Corps Act - to help Americans understand the people and cultures of other countries -thereby making our country better informed and more engaged in world affairs."

John C. Rude perhaps said it best. In his article, "Why The Peace Corps Needs a Fourth Goal," Rude (RPCV Eritrea 1962-64), states: "The Fourth Goal states explicitly that peace is part of the agency's mission. Whatever else is "real" about global politics, we must address the fact that our capacity for killing is vastly greater than our capacity for healing. Read the op-ed at:

*This link was active on the date it was posted. PCOL is not responsible for broken links which may have changed.

WINNING THE HEARTS AND MINDS?

By Collin Tong

The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee recently opened hearings into the Administration's request for $87 billion for the military and for Iraqi reconstruction on Sept. 22, 2003. At those hearings, Sen. Robert C. Byrd ( D. - W. VA.) asserted:

"In essence, America faces two wars at once: the war brought against us with the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the war that we brought to Iraq on March 19, 2003. The Iraqi war was the wrong war, for the wrong reasons, against the wrong enemy.

"It is a tragedy of American foreign policy that the sympathy which most of the world had for the United States after 9-11 has been squandered by the Bush Administration's headlong pursuit of an unnecessary preemptive war against a sovereign country, a country which posed no imminent and direct threat to our national security."

Sen. Byrd's observation raises profoundly troubling questions for Returned Peace Corps Volunteers seeking to voice their concerns about the course of American foreign policy post Sept. 11th, and in particular the deteriorating humanitarian crisis in Iraq.

In his op-ed, "Send in the Peace Corps" (July 23rd, New York Times) Avi M. Spiegel weighed in on that debate.

"The Peace Corps, America's oldest overseas volunteer program should equip itself to enter regions it now deems too dangerous," wrote Siegel (RPCV Morocco 1998-2000). "With Congress debating spending on the Peace Corps and Americorps, it is time to update the Peace Corps' mission."

His rationale: "Today the war on terror guides America's foreign policy, and it is all-encompassing. No nation is totally immune from danger. If it only allowed its volunteers in safe, stable countries, the Peace Corps would risk being shut out of too much of the world. The security situations in these countries may not change, but the Peace Corps can."

To many of us in the RPCV community, Spiegel's proposals signal the demise of Peace Corps' mission and a troubling, perhaps fatal, accommodation to the administration's National Security Strategy.

Released on Sept. 20, that document outlines a long-range plan for permanent U.S. military and economic preeminence in every region on the globe, unfettered by international treaty or concern. That policy, in effect, has committed the nation to preemptive military strikes in the perennial U.S.-declared war on terrorism.

On Feb. 14 and March 21, 2003, more than 1,850 RPCVs signed two New York Times ads urging a peaceful resolution of the crisis in Iraq and condemning unilateral U.S. action. We did so mindful of the reasons that inspired more than 165,000 Americans who have served abroad in 136 countries, i.e. to promote better understanding of other peoples in the world .

In particular, we reaffirm the spirit articulated in the Third Goal of the Peace Corps Act - to help Americans understand the people and cultures of other countries -thereby making our country better informed and more engaged in world affairs.

John C. Rude perhaps said it best. In his article, "Why The Peace Corps Needs a Fourth Goal," Rude (RPCV Eritrea 1962-64), states: "The Fourth Goal states explicitly that peace is part of the agency's mission. Whatever else is "real" about global politics, we must address the fact that our capacity for killing is vastly greater than our capacity for healing.

"The Peace Corps' pragmatic reason for existence is solely to make healing possible, thereby make killing seem unreasonable. The Fourth Goal recognizes that the Peace Corps is not merely an agency of government or an instrument of American foreign policy."

Sending in Peace Corps Volunteers, as Spiegel proposes, to Iraq, Afghanistan, and other nations where U.S. military forces are engaged in low-intensity conflict only reinforces the perception that the Peace Corps is an extension of U.S. foreign policy, albeit in the service of "winning the hearts and minds".

For that reason alone, it's hard to make the case to increase the size of Peace Corps in the post-9/11 world, if our only purpose is to bolster the ill-advised goal of expanding U.S. military bases in the Middle East and other regions around the globe.

One need only look at the aftermath of "Operation Iraqi Freedom" to understand the consequences of such a decision. Twelve years of U.S.-imposed economic sanctions followed by the unfolding quagmire of postwar occupation have only increased civilian suffering in Iraq.

"Since the (sanctions) program began," reports Joy Gordon in "Cool War: Economic Sanctions as a Weapon of Mass Destruction," (November 2002, Harper's) "an estimated 500,000 Iraqi children under the age of five have died as a result of the sanctions - almost three times as many as the number of Japanese killed during the U.S. atomic bomb attacks."

Yet Iraqi civilian casualties - many of them children -- from the war and sanctions continue to be ignored or underreported by the mainstream media, despite published reports by the United Nations and other humanitarian aid organizations.

"Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad," James Madison once wrote Thomas Jefferson in 1798.

"Truth is the first casualty of war," a journalist once wrote. Without informed public debate and civic engagement on the humanitarian consequences of the U.S.'s preemptive invasion of Iraq, not only is the White House emboldened to skirt any accountability for its decisions in the months ahead, but the possibilities for dissent are stifled.

Without informed public debate, an already inflamed tinderbox in the Middle East may easily ignite into an international conflagration the likes of which we can only hope will not happen.

About the Author

Collin Tong, senior director of news and communications at Washington State University, served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Thailand from 1968 to 1969. Tong established Returned Peace Corps Volunteers for a Better World, a campaign of more than 1,850 RPCVs nationwide who signed the New York Times ads. For more information, see www.epic-usa.org/rpcv.

House of Representatives passes CharterThe Peace Corps and the Returned Volunteer community celebrated a big victory when the "Peace Corps Act for the 21st Century" Act passed the House in July. Read what's next for the bill.

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This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; Speaking Out; Iraq

When I served in the Peace Corps, it was an extension of American Foreign Policy, but American Foreign Policy included the search for Peace in the midst of hostility.

Today, post 9/11, I look in vain for any part of American Foreign Policy that includes the search for Peace. All I see is militaristic jingoism and a contempt for the world community that defies comprehension.

That is why I was so grateful to Collin Tong for initiating the New York Times advertisement that harkened back to the original Peace Corps ideals, while the whole country, including four of the ten current candidates for the Democratic Party's nomination for President, rushed toward the invasion of Iraq on trumped-up grounds.

I signed that statement in the New York Times. There wouldn't have been anything to sign without Collin's wonderful organizational activities.

Collin, you are clearly living out the Peace Corps ideals as an RPCV. I admire your hard work. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

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